I heard about this in a law class years ago, probably before Medicare came into being. And, there is nothing wrong with selling your property for less than the value if you so choose. The insurance part of my suggestion was part of estate planning when I studied life insurance to get my license. Yes, it is expensive to purchase the life insurance late in life, but you are supposed to purchase it early in life, when you plan what is down the road. We own a piece of beach property that we bought from my father in law for $1. It's market value is somewhere between $70-150,000. Actually, we own 1/3 of it, and paid 1/3 of a dollar to him for it. He was getting ready to retire and tired of maintaining the property. A lawyer drew it up, so I don't think there was anything illegal involved. If this is a personal issue for you or anyone you know, certainly check with a lawyer familiar with estate planning. The downside of it is, that if you plan to live on the property until your death, you want to be sure you can trust the person you sell it to to honor that expectation because legally they don't have to do so. Anne Anne Pemberton [log in to unmask] http://www.erols.com/stevepem http://www.erols.com/apembert http://www.educationalsynthesis.org To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html